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Day: 8 April 2011

Event Review: Cornerhouse’s 25th Birthday

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

It was Cornerhouse’s 25th birthday on 25th September, and to celebrate they held an ‘80s party called ‘It was acceptable in the ‘80s’ (why does everybody keep saying that? What was acceptable in the ‘80s? Invading the Faulklands?). It started off with a choice of classic ‘80s films, and everyone went to see The Goonies except me, a move I quickly regretted. Insignificance seemed more attractive at the time, and was also a movie I hadn’t seen approximately a billion times. It’s about a man who is clearly supposed to be Einstein and a woman who is clearly supposed to be Marilyn Monroe who nearly have sex but don’t. Weird. After the film there was a quiz about the ‘80s and I literally didn’t know a single answer, but everyone was given a donut for taking part. Guiltiest donut I’ve ever eaten. The donut of shame.

  The party then moved upstairs and it was all free drinks and dancing Ghostbusters. Actually, after the two free drinks it reverted back to mad Cornerhouse prices, so getting battered wasn’t really on the agenda. It would’ve been a little weird anyway to be honest; the crowd at this party were overwhelmingly those who idolised Bill Murray when they were seven, but who are now kind of balding and forlornly picking at their glittery suits over a mug of red wine. The party was a bit lamely decked out and no massive effort had gone into the decoration of the place. There was also the quite fundamental problem that there was no good music in the ‘80s. True story.

Verdict: Members of the Breakfast Club might have enjoyed this but as a member of the Pokemon club this didn’t offer a great deal. Noughties Ferris Bueller would’ve truanted the fuck out of this.

Steve Jones, Film Editor

Interview: Mark Kermode

Written by Film on . Posted in Film.

Mark Kermode

Eons ago, the country’s most famous film critic Mark Kermode wrote for the very paper you’re reading. Now he’s written a book: It’s Only a Movie: Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive, he’s touring round the UK, he’s in a band, he regularly appears on Newsnight Review and he’s got his own radio show with Simon Mayo. Need any more reasons to write for The Mancunion? I contacted the former University of Manchester student to talk Horror, Hulme, and the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film.

An enthusiastic start, Kermode kicked off the interview by talking about his time in Manchester as a student: ‘I lived in a housing estate in Hulme. It was pretty run down, but there was a very creative atmosphere. All the students seemed to be in bands.’ Was he in a band at this point, I asked. ‘Yeah. We were called The Railtown Bottlers. I’ve actually never not been in a band.’

‘It was around this time that I started to write for The Mancunion. In my day, we paid our way into everything, sent in a review and picked up the paper hoping our article would be in there.’ He went on: ‘It wasn’t nearly as regulated in those days.’ Well, readers, now everything is free and your article is likely to be published, therefore disproving once and for all the theory of the ‘good old days’. Interestingly, Kermode didn’t actually write for the Film section; ‘I wrote gig reviews. I remember the first one I did: The Higsons, with Charlie Higson. Also, Orange Juice.’ Well, everybody has to start somewhere.

‘At the same time I also wrote for City Life in Manchester, and I went on to write for NME. It was all very open back then, I seemed to just waltz in everywhere and be given work. It’s not like that now. I don’t know how on Earth you’d become a critic today.’ I asked him how he did it, specifically. ‘By lying basically. I lied and blagged my way into everything and now here I am.’ I was glad to hear the only true method for going through life confirmed by someone like Kermode; ‘I remember claiming to have loads of experience on the radio, being thrust in front of a microphone and being told to talk on air.’ I wanted to move on before he told me he his name wasn’t even Mark Kermode or something.

I asked him what he would call his book; it’s not really a biography, though it reads like one; more a compilation of anecdotes and a timeline of the films he’s seen in his life. ‘Well, I started out writing about my thoughts on films, and it kind of just turned into that. All those anecdotes just seemed to fit’. At the end of a lot of those anecdotes, he says ‘but that didn’t really happen’, or something along those lines.

I asked him about this; ‘I recorded all those stories in my book as I remember them. My memories have become so distorted; I don’t even know if they really happened any more. That’s what happens; you corroborate the evidence. Once at a desert shoot in LA, my band was supporting this terrible metal band. We hated them. I remember turning the wind machine on them and blowing the drummer off stage.

After I published my book, my friend said that that didn’t happen, and that only some of the drum kit was blown over. I came to realise that my memory must have been influenced by a scene in Slade in Flame’s movie, where the drummer is blown off stage.

It’s just like what Edward Woodward once said to me, when he was on the set for The Wicker Man – they didn’t have enough flowers for a shoot where he was on a horse drawn cart, so every so often the crew would stop filming and move previous flowers in front of the cart. I asked the crew on the film about this, and they say that it definitely didn’t happen, but when I went back to Woodward he absolutely insisted that that’s what he remembers. I understand completely, especially when you’ve seen as many films as I have – they start to encroach on your real life. That’s what my book is partly about, really.’

Kermode spent his childhood in the cinema. He is a massive fan of the horror genre, particularly The Exorcist, and even says in his book that ‘I don’t think there is a spiritual element to human life, I know it because I have experienced it first hand, and I have horror films to thanks for that’. Kermode commented on this remark: ‘Some people get football. I don’t. Some people understand Opera. I don’t. I really get horror films, and I think when you find your niche as I did with horror it can be genuinely transcendent. Horror cinema is kind of about that anyway – it is spiritual, in a way. It’s wishful thinking. I mean, if the day comes when hundreds of zombies come crashing through your window, well, then at least that means there’s an afterlife.’

I asked if this spiritual side he feels has anything to do with the fact he’s a church-goer. ‘Maybe. I don’t think you can feel that transcendent side of it without having some interest in religion. I don’t believe in demonic possession or anything – I just have a connection to horror films that borders on religious.’ He named some of his favourite horror films, such as Onibaba, Eraserhead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I wondered if he liked any of the more modern horrors; ‘Well, to me, those films are modern. You just don’t think they are because you’re a child.’ Can’t argue with that. For any of you wondering though, he hates the Saw movies.

He’s doing a tour of the UK at the moment, to coincide with the release of the paperback version of his book. I wondered what it will entail. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what it’s not going to be. It’s not going to be me just reading from my book. I don’t get book readings. What’s the appeal? My show is closer to stand up comedy, I suppose, with references to what I’ve written in ‘It’s Only a Movie’. I’m really looking forward to my Manchester show. I didn’t do one on my first tour in February and it’ll be a big moment for me, returning to talk in the city where it all started.’

Kermode’s tour comes to Manchester on 23rd November, and tickets are £10 on ticketline.com. He’ll be doing book signings after the show too, so it’s a must for fans. I finished off by saying that I was looking forward to his review of Pirates of the Caribbean 4; Kermode HATES Pirates of the Caribbean, just check out his review of the third one on Youtube. ‘(Laughs) You can’t pre-judge these things. They might have re-invented it or something. You have to go to a film with an open mind, no matter what.’ A truly objective critic, if ever I saw one.

Kermode came across as very honest and friendly, and it’s nice to see that his level of stardom hasn’t made him forget his roots at The Mancunion. His advice to all us budding critics on the Film section was ‘watch films to the exclusion of everything else, live in the cinema and never, never second guess the audience’. You heard it from The Good Doctor here.

Steve Jones, Film Editor

I Hate: Shrek

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Shrek

 I hate Shrek. No, really, I hate it. And not in an ‘I hate carrots’ kind of way, but in a full blown, screaming-as-you-pull-your-suitcases-out-the-door, ‘I hate you and your mother and that tattoo of your ex’s face that you have on the inside of your thigh’ way. But the thing is (as I’m sure you’ll know) the only way to get to that kind of hatred is to really fall in love first.
  I was eleven when Shrek came out in the cinema. My brother, my parents and I went to see it, and within 90 minutes it had become my favourite movie ever. It was cool, because, c’mon, he’s a massive, sarcastic, Scottish ogre, and it was good fun too (hell, I didn’t know that the talking donkey liked to spend his money on transvestite prostitutes). Frankly, it was a beautifully self-encapsulated semi-satirical masterpiece, or, as I put it back then; one fucking funny film.
  The thing is, like most things in life, Shrek was ruined for me by the secondary education system. I’m sure my school had other DVDs; I saw them hidden behind big books on the top shelf; but, when it came to the end of term and the teachers got too bored and jaded to teach us anymore, they would play one film over and over and over again. My film. Shrek. Now I can’t tell you the seven times table, pick out the Noble Gases or recite one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but I can remember, word for word, the first fifty-five minutes of that film (the length of one lesson). And I’ll tell you what: it’s just not funny anymore. The sequels, well, they were just salt in the wound. It broke my heart. So, now, I hate Shrek.

Bill Knowles

I Heart: Into The Wild

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Into The Wild

 Henry David Thoreau once said, ‘Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth’. This movie is based on a true story; it follows a man named ‘Christopher McCandless’ in his search for ‘the truth’ and a life with nature. After graduating from university, Chris donates his life savings of $24,000 to Oxfam International, takes his ‘trusty’ yellow Datsun and begins his big adventure. He adopts the moniker ‘Alexander Supertramp’, and chooses to live a simple life away from the ‘empty, materialistic society of America’ (his opinion, not mine, although a bit of peace and quiet is probably high on everyone’s list after a few years at uni). Luckily, we, the viewers get to go along for the ride, from Mexico all the way north to Alaska.
  So why do I love this movie? The film is true (see the theme developing?) to the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (a must-read). Sean Penn does a stellar job as director; encapsulating the mood of the movie with great cinematography and a brilliant cast. I was constantly blown away by the location shots of North America; one particular scene in which Chris is running beside wild horses really sums what I’m talking about. How Emile Hirsch (our Chris for intense and purposes) wasn’t nominated for an Oscar still baffles me today.
  Other notable performances include Hal Holbrook (who was nominated for an Oscar) who plays ‘Ron Franz’; he might even get those tears flowing in the manliest of men. Another reason to love this movie is Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam who provides the soundtrack. So what more do you want? ‘Vince Vaughn’ I hear you say? Don’t worry! He’s in it too.
  You should watch this movie because, as cheesy as it sounds, it may actually change your life. I’m not saying follow by his example, but his philosophies are challenging.

Michael Lyons

Top 5: Films to look out for in 2011

Written by Film on . Posted in Film.

Thor

1) Thor – (May) – British, Shakespearean actor and director Kenneth Branagh brings his prowess to comic book territory, with an interesting cast including Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba (aka Stringer Bell from The Wire).

2) The Tree of Life – (May) – Up and coming director Terrence Malik pushes his second film in six years. Brad Pitt and Sean Penn star in this story of an eldest son of a 1950s mid-west family and his relationship with his father as he comes of age.

3) 127 Hours – (Jan) – Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire is said to be a real life story of a mountain climber trapped under a boulder and forced to take extreme measures to survive. It stars James Franco and has been garnering plaudits and admiration on the film festival circuit. Watch out, Touching the Void.

4) Hugo Cabret – (Dec) – Scorsese’s first 3D kid’s flick is about an orphan who lives in the walls of a 1930s Paris train station and is involved in a mystery concerning his father and a robot. Or something like that. Newcomer Asa Butterfield stars with Chloe Moretz, Sasha Baron-Cohen, Jude Law and Christopher Lee. Another interesting cast.

5) The Fighter – (Feb) – True life story of boxer Mickie Ward (Mark Wahlberg) helped by his drug imprisoned brother Dickie (Christian Bale in ultra-thin mode) to become world champion. Directed by David O. Russell (Three Kings) this film promises to be as explosive on set as off.

Aman Somal

Top 5: Movie monsters

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Hannibal Lecter

1) Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs) – Okay I know! He’s only human but definitely deserves a special mention. In my opinion there is nothing more terrifying than a psychopath criminal who wants to eat you, but somehow looks like the sort of guy your desperately lonely mother would bring home as your ‘new father’. Talk about awkward atmosphere at the dinner table. ‘More liver anyone?’

2) The Infected (28 days later) – Ah Danny Boyle, you have given us so much! Slumdog millionaires, incontinent crack heads, and most of all, ‘Rage’. The beautiful little virus that combines the best of Tourette’s syndrome with rabies, showing us that zombies need not be the unbearably slow, flesh-craving OAPs of Land of the Dead.

3) The Cave Dwellers (The Descent) – Lots of people are afraid of going into caves. Some people are claustrophobic, others afraid of the dark. But most of the time it’s because there is a grotesque race of albino humanoids with a taste for flesh just waiting in the darkness.

4) Jaws (Jaws) – Torpedoes are scary. Torpedoes with teeth are shit scary. What about a 25ft killer shark with its own tense background music and a taste for anything that happens to be under water, or even just slightly wet for that matter? Yeah that’s pretty damn scary too! Warning; a bigger boat may be required.

5) The Alien (Alien) – Never ignore Sigourney Weaver if you value the lives of your colleagues and/or cat. As if having a giant spider attached to your face with its penis down your throat wasn’t bad enough, your chest will probably burst open at the worst moment, possible producing a terrifying dot on a radar scanner that will stop at nothing to eat you with its deadly tongue.

David Pettifer

I Heart: Witchcraft

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

The Hoff

  Once upon a time, during my first week of life as a fresher, I was introduced to a film that would remain lodged in my memory for the rest of eternity. As a break from the obligatory uni bingeing, we decided to have a film night, and to appeal to the masses, we went for The Shawshank Redemption. ‘Flatmate A’ (who will remain anonymous for dignity’s sake) returned with her boxset of 4 “Classic” Films, which contained an ominous-looking film named Withcraft on the reverse of the Shawshank disk. Intrigue led to viewing, and what followed certainly didn’t disappoint.
  Witchcraft is set in a misty area of Massachusetts, on a small island which is said to be haunted by the many witches that had been put to death there during the infamous witch trials. Gary, played by David Hasselhoff (Yes, The Hoff made it into this masterpiece!) and his virginal girlfriend decide to go to the island to further their studies in witchcraft, which, naturally, leads to them and some other insignificant characters being launched into a frenzy of paranormal activities and laughable gruesome duels; one has their mouth sewn shut in a satanic basement, one unfortunate soul’s jugular magically bursts all over the Hoff, and one is sucked down the plughole into sewage pipe oblivion. Needless to say, this film would be genuinely stomach-turning if it wasn’t so hilariously bad. There might have been a bit more plot in there, but I probably missed that whilst wiping away tears of laughter.
  I cannot urge you enough to ignore the 2.7/10 rating on IMDb, if only to see the ending. It’s too good to spoil now, but let’s just say that His Royal Hoffness certainly goes out with a bang. Goodness only knows who decided to put this on the same humble disk as Shawshank, but whoever they are, they deserve a round of applause for providing me with a side-splitting 95 minutes of euro-genius. Shelve the psychological thrillers and enjoy some mockery of late 80’s horror instead this Halloween.

Emma Martindale

I Hate: The Saw films

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Saw V

  A lot has been said about the desensitisation of audiences to gore and horror. In the last decade, our preoccupation with our own desensitisation has been escalated, thanks to a series of ‘gorenography’ films; horror flicks that spend most of their time showing us grisly, disgusting deaths, maiming, and quite often some of the most startlingly repulsive images we’re ever likely to see. Recently the subgenre has descended to farce (The Human Centipede) and taken a shot at high art (Antichrist) but the jewel in the gorenography crown, the one that keeps bringing the money in, is the Saw franchise.
  But let’s forget about the ethics of desensitisation for a second. Why is it that we’re so unaffected by such theoretically shocking images? Could it be the fact that every time something horrific is about to happen, the suspense is fried by cinematography which jumps around the room on a sugar rush, hammering home that this is scary, and simply doesn’t have the bravery to let the camera sit and watch? Could it be that we’re too busy as an audience trying to figure out where this scene belongs in relation to the rest of the franchise, or whether we’re even supposed to have figured that out yet?
  Or maybe it’s because the actors, lumbered with a script that trades dialogue for character exposition, simply don’t have it in them to make us care that they’re about to be eviscerated, immolated or indefinitely incarcerated. Movies that didn’t suffer from all of these problems wouldn’t have us sat there, complaining that we’re desensitised.
  It’s Halloween, and Saw 3D is out. It looks at least to have had some real money spent on it. Whether they’ve fixed some of the more important problems is another issue.

Alex Little

Battle of the Beasts: Zombies

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

"Run!"

You’re running through a deep, dark wasteland, pursued by an unspeakable terror. You can’t get away fast enough, and for some reason your every move is punctuated by gothic choral music. But then a thought occurs, and you stop. Why are you running?
  Zombies are the walking dead, scary precisely because they cannot be reasoned with or persuaded. If it’s a zombie that’s chasing you, there’s no messing around with the business of exacting justice on their killer. Unlike a ghost they won’t spend most of their time attempting to communicate with you. There’s no tortured wolfman psyche, pontificating over the consequences of their actions. If you’re particularly unlucky when a vampire gets you, it may well try and come onto you.
  The only way to stop a zombie from committing an act of violent horror on you is to commit an act of violent horror on a zombie, and this magnificent equation keeps any zombie movie protagonist dead or deadly; a great set up for some dark situations. Think of 28 Days Later, or Shaun’s mum in Shaun of the Dead.
  Zombies themselves have no morality, and that’s part of their appeal, but they make for good social commentary. George A. Romero’s ‘Dead’ series handles consumerism, Vietnam, and American culture at large. By definition they operate en masse, and that means that no matter how long you flee, how far you run, you will never be free. Sure, they might take a while to get to you. If they’re Romero’s, it may be quite a while indeed. But when Zombies catch up with you in that wasteland, at least you know they’re going to rip your head off and chew your brains out. Nice and simple; and at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want?

Alex Little

Battle of the Beasts: Werewolves

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Wolfman

  So it’s Halloween and you and your flatmates sit down to enjoy a couple of scary movies. But Which do you choose? Well definitely not Land of the Dead with its dull plotline and zombies that appear to have escaped from the local care home; nor Blade with its ridiculous action sequences, and lack of style no matter how hard it tries.   The movies you pick aren’t any of these; they’re more than likely something like Underworld, An American Werewolf in London or Dog Soldiers. Three well-made movies that combine action with horror, in a way that most of the mass produced horror flicks fail to do. But what makes these movies so good?
  It’s that howling mass of hairy, blood-thirsty muscle that we call the werewolf. From the tall, aggressive beasts of Underworld, with their savage teeth and a preference for fresh meat over Pedigree chum (no matter how moist the chunks are); to the harrowing eyes and lanky frame of the surprisingly chilling Professor Lupin (Harry Potter), werewolves have been haunting us in the cinema for decades. We’ve seen many incarnations of the classic mythological beast, and with every film there comes the absolutely unique transformation scene. Werewolves instil us with a deep primal fear, born from a natural terror of the pack animal, and in movies this lasts right from the very first howl to the last silver bullet. Lycanthropes are the perfect metaphor for human weakness; a lack of self-control over our basic animal instincts and our ability to inflict this upon others. The perfect movie monster is the one within us all. And I think you’ll agree that there is no better cliché in the horror movie industry than a pitch black sky, a full moon and an eerie howl echoing from afar.

David Pettifer

Battle of the Beasts: Monsters

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Rarrrrwww!

  Of all the film scenes throughout history, nothing has ever matched the simplistic chill of Jurassic Park: A single coffee cup, shot up close as it ripples with the heavy footsteps of the approaching T-Rex. Why does this single image continue to instill so much dread in the general public? Because monsters are big. Really big.
  Monsters take us back to a less evolved time when our ancestors spent their days looking over their shoulders because we weren’t quite so sky-high in the food chain. They scare us in a way that other creatures can’t because they come at us on a primal level. When Godzilla, (being the only word to this day that you can pronounce in a corny Japanese accent without appearing politically incorrect), appears on the horizon, your first reaction isn’t to search for the good inside his soul, (sodding Vampires), but to leg it away as fast as you can, preferably screaming inanely as you do. Monsters have the power to level cities and pluck up their citizens like KFC popcorn chicken. It takes whole swarms of the undead to raise a town, but any half-decent monster could manage it in an afternoon. They’re lurking under our beds, at the bottom of caves, and in any semi-decent toxic waste facility.
  Monsters also have the horrible knack of leveling the playing field; all the animals you abused as a child now reappear 50ft tall and attack you in late 1950s B-movies – ants, spiders and – erm, women! All we fear deep down is just one radioactive leak away from being our newest predator and there’s nothing any of us can do about it, because at the end of the day, we’re all just something stuck between their teeth.

Mark Pettit

Battle of the Beasts: Humans

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Humans

  We all love monsters, vampires, zombies, and so on and they’re fun (if you like to laugh at the improbable) but the truly memorable characters from horror movies, the ones that send a shiver down every viewer’s spines are the humans.
  Throughout the history of film we have had many unforgettable performances, so I’m going to limit myself to a more recent incarnation. Over the last few years with Hostel, Saw and an onslaught haphazard remakes, we have only been blessed by a few exceptional men and women, peppered over the monotonous nonsense we call modern horror. The most recent edition to the hall of fame is Woody Harrelson’s baseball bat wielding ‘Tallahassee’ in Zombieland. This foulmouthed, full-hearted Texan captured the mood of an irreverent modern Zombie movie which didn’t play to the conventions; smashing up Zombies left and right in an increasingly creative and hilarious fashion.
  Women made the transition from damsel in distress to kick-ass heroines in ‘The Descent’; the frightened teenagers of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ were anything but heroic (although they did make the most hardened of horror fans squeal with their realistic portrayal of shit-scared idiots). The ultimate modern humans in horror however are undoubtedly ‘ZomRomCom’ heroes ‘Shaun’ (Simon Pegg) and ‘Ed’ (Nick Frost) in ‘Shaun of The Dead’. Any horror protagonists who defend themselves by hurling old records at zombies (after firstly mistaking her for a pissed-up bird) are exponentially the modern horror idols.
  These are the good guys, the ones that fight for the human race, so don’t even get me started on the baddies. Hannibal Lecter, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers; these guys are happy to slice you and dice you in all manner of interesting ways. Slasher films (think Saw) have reality on their side, somehow it’s much scarier knowing that the deranged psycho killer that stalked that group of teens (not unlike you and your flatmates) wasn’t a supernatural abomination but a regular Joe-gone-crazy.

Aman Somal

Battle of the Beasts: Vampires

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Dracula

  Vampires. These bloodsucking creatures have been the villains and sometimes the heroes, of films from the dawn of cinema; their power to both scare and enthral us remaining to this day.
  There are two main portrayals of vampires in film: the sophisticated and sexy look, popular in the many of the older films; or the violent, and often mindless, killer blood-addicts. Unfortunately the Twilight saga has given us a new breed of vampire: the caring, sparkling softie who pushes Mormon values. It would be easy here to go into a rant on why the Twilight films are so terrible, lacking any depth and good acting. But I won’t.
  Twilight should not overshadow how vampires in film can be terrifying. Here we need to mention Béla Lugosi, if you don’t know who he is, then go ahead and do an impression of Dracula now. You probably just said something like ‘I vant to suck your blood’ (complete with the terrible fo-Transylvanian accent). That’s Béla Lugosi’s famous voice you just impersonated, a performance is so well-known that when he died he was buried in his Dracula costume! The Lost Boys is another great vampire film, here the vampires take the form of a gang of teenagers that terrorise the local town. They are the cool bad-asses that we all wanted to be at that age (but weren’t as we were probably inside watching vampire films at the time).
  The lack of any good, recent vampire films is probably due to the Twilight craze; and once all the Twi-hard, Edward-loving girls grow up, I hope that we return to the more traditional image of vampires; those terrifying monsters that swoop into your bedroom at night and rip you to pieces, not read you love poems.

John Milward

Top 5: Dodgy Disney characters

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

1) Captain Hook – I know that technically, he was created by J.M. Barrie, but the strangely Elektran relationship that he has with Wendy was highlighted beautifully in the Disney version of Peter Pan.

2) The Crows from Dumbo – These feather bigots prove that racism is never funny.

3) Pumba and Timone – Simba’s flatulent side kicks. I have two words for you: Cheap laughs. Who decided to give them a spin-off?

4) Princess Aurora – Introducing small children to the lighter side of ‘stranger danger’ since 1959. Well, ok, it turns out that Prince Phillip is a family friend and they’ve been engaged all along, but she didn’t know that did she?

5) Donald Duck – The original exhibitionist – I have never seen this dude wearing pants, yet he feels the need to wear half a sailor costume. A Little too kinky for kids if you ask me.

Beth Cook, Film Editor

I Hate: Terminator Salvation

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

 

 The original Terminator is a popular sci-fi action thriller and its sequel, T2-Judgement Day, showed that sequels don’t have to be worse than the original film, and that action movies can actually have a decent plot in addition to all the explosions and guns.
  The latest addition to the franchise is Terminator Salvation where, in the year 2018 John Connor, played very one-dimensionally by Christian Bale, and the human resistance are trying to destroy the machines and Skynet; the controlling computer. We are also introduced to Marcus Wright, a death row inmate who had donated his body to Cyberdyne Systems before the war with the machines and now wakes up in the post-apocalyptic world of the future. Wright teams up with a young Kyle Reese and together they go about tearing the shit out of the evil, mechanised forces of Skynet.
  It’s right about here that any semblance of a plot just disappears, leaving the the rest of the film consisting of the following: destroying robots, move to the next scene, destroying more robots; and repeat. It seems that director McG thinks that plot holes can just be pasted over with liberal use of CGI and explosives. They can’t. Bale, supposedly the lead, is totally outperformed by Sam Worthington’s Marcus, so much so that the mis-cast Bale is reduced to banality. To his credit Worthington does his best, but is let down by an appalling screenplay, an invisible plot line and performances by his co-stars that are worse than that of the CGI Arnie that appears briefly towards the end.
  The film is lacking in all that made the first two Terminators great; originality, heart-pounding action, charm and that minor detail; a plot. Please, let’s send Arnie back in time to prevent this film ever being made.

John Milward

Regional Premier: Insidious – 12th April 2011

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Film.

Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) are a happily married couple with three young children who have just moved into an idyllic new suburban home. But when tragedy strikes their young son, Josh and Renai begin to experience things in the house that are void of explanation. Before long, their lives are turned upside down by demonic forces, hell-bent on terrorising their very existence. Forced to seek help and protect their family, they learn the terrifying truth; it’s not the house that’s haunted.

James Wan and Leigh Whannell (the co-creators of SAW) join forces with the producers of Paranormal Activity to take you on a mind-bending and chilling journey into the world of the unknown.

The regional premier is on Tuesday 12th April at 7pm in Manchester Odeon Filmworks (in the Printworks in town), and will be followed by a Q&A with Director James Wan, and Writer/Actor Leigh Whannell, the dark minds behind the phenomenally successful SAW franchise.

Visit the film’s Facebook site for more info: www.facebook.com/insidiousUK

Book tickets for the event online here: https://www.odeon.co.uk/fanatic/booking-interactive/s11/p38371000023PKPOCBF/

(INSIDIOUS is in cinemas Nationwide April 29)

Live: Continue @ Sankeys

Written by Sophie Donovan on . Posted in Music.

Anyone who’s been foolish enough to attend Sankeys’ infamous Full Moon party would be shocked to hear that the venue boasts one of “the most comfortable clubbing experiences in the world.” This claim, which accompanies DJ Mag’s Top 100 Clubs list, clearly has its advocates as the Manchester club beat some of the world’s most celebrated haunts to the top spot.

Thank heavens then that there’s not a group of glow-painted lads huddled around a bucket of vodka-Redbull in sight, and instead Sankeys confirm why they were awarded the no.1 spot by booking some of the most influential producers in electronic music.

Manchester based DJ and producer XXXY begins proceedings in the main room, displaying his talents within the future garage realm. As a crowd grows, tastemakers Instra:mental take the stage. Famed for their minimalist drum and bass, Autonomic podcasts and NonPlus record label; they demonstrate why they’ve been hailed two of the best in the business- dropping favourites such as ‘Underground’ and ‘Bodikka’s House’ and a rewound ‘When I Dip’, brings a wave of elation to an already jubilant room. Next to the decks is Hessle Audio co-founder Pangaea. Flattered by merrymakers’ demands for a rewind of his ‘Inna Daze’, he follows this with another of his very own creations, ‘Memories’. Stranger tracks are to follow, as London trio Dark Sky revel in a remix of Gerard Bulter holler “this is Sparta!” yet the crowd appear delighted at their bouncing rework or Timberland’s ‘Promiscuous Girl’.

Headliner Paul Rose, who tonight plays back to back under his aliases Scuba and SCB, has a busy schedule; living in Berlin, producing a new album and managing one of the most diverse labels under the ‘dubstep’ umbrella. “Dubstep’s a tricky one now,” he told The Mancunion, “the genre’s been narrowed down to fit more of a mainstream ethos, which is a shame as the original intentions have been lost. For instance, in 2001 nights like Forward were so exciting and no one had the slightest idea that it would explode as it has, everyone was just plugging away in vein hope that it would take off. But the scene in London is a bit stale now, hence why I moved out to Berlin.”

Playing a techno fuelled set, its clear that Scuba is trying to move away from his previous roots. “There’s a freedom in Berlin to experiment and play what you want. I feel they’ve got the clubbing experience right as well, especially at Berghain. It’s a lot more hedonistic there and never too crowed- they tend to pack out so many British clubs.” The exclusive German club has become notoriously difficult for travelling Brits to gain entry, but Rose is unaware of any hostility: “It’s a special place, we run a predominantly techno night there called Substance and, seeing as we’re a couple of English guys, we’ve had an incredible reception.” This, a reception that seems to have transcended boarders as the gyrating mass remain until the 5am close, to see out the superb set.

Sophie Donovan

Live: The Naked and Famous @ Academy 3

Written by music on . Posted in Music.

The Naked and Famous
Academy 3
8th March 2011
4 stars

The intimate atmosphere in Academy 3 was the perfect setting for the first appearance of intriguing new sound and beat makers, The Naked and Famous. This New Zealand-originated rock band have fused the ferocious talents of Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers to create a five-piece band with a style similar to that of MGMT (it’s difficult to not think of the psychedelic pop tones in accordance with anyone else) yet they differentiate with vocals to rival that of Paramore’s Hayley Williams. Xayalith provides the band with a voice of a siren, which when paired with Power’s composition and freakish control skills results in an unstoppable electro duo. 



As they are still to release their album in the UK, titled Passive Me, Aggressive You, the released singles, and therefore the most well known, are ‘Young Blood’ and ‘Punching in a Dream’. The single ‘Young Blood’ has probably familiarised itself with the majority of adolescents as the track on the promo episode of Skins, syncing itself with the particular carefree scene, which is reflected in their music. As the penultimate track on the set list it did not disappoint and left fans on a high, with the preceding part of the set consistently producing electricity among the audience.

Introducing themselves with ‘All of This’, the band set themselves at a fast pace early on, with a high point being the rendition of ‘Girls Like You’. It is difficult to not enjoy this band, especially when seeing them live as they have an energy that reverberates, not only from the speakers but, from their passion. They will be returning to Manchester for the Dot to Dot festival at the end of May, a gig I encourage people not to miss!

Roz Lawson

Live: The Decemberists @ Academy 1

Written by music on . Posted in Music.

The Decemberists
Academy 1
10th March 2011
4 & 1/2 stars

Their new album, The King Is Dead, went to number one in America and tonight’s show is part of their biggest UK tour to date, but the strongest indication of The Decemberists having ‘made it’ surely comes in the form of a pre-recorded message, played before the band take the stage, from the mayor of their hometown of Portland, Sam Adams.
The tongue-in-cheek introduction, in which Adams claims to be speaking live from a geodesic dome floating above the venue and encourages audience members to introduce themselves to the people around them, sets the tone for an evening that sees the folk-rockers make the cavernous Academy 1 feel very intimate. Opening with the rollicking ‘The Infanta’, the band tear through an impressive setlist, which leans heavily on the Americana of their latest studio effort.

Whilst there’s nothing from the first two records, a slew of classics make the cut tonight, including ‘Sixteen Military Wives’, the murderous ‘The Rake’s Song’ and the set highlight, the sprawling maritime epic ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’, during which the crowd are urged “to scream as if you’re being eaten by a whale”. The Decemberists’ main strength, though, has always been in frontman Colin Meloy’s delightfully sharp lyrics; his evocative, highly literate style echoes such contemporaries as The Shins and Belle and Sebastian and tonight paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of the band’s pacific northwest home.

Closing a second encore with the gorgeous ‘June Hymn’ and segueing into a cover of The Smiths’ ‘Ask’ in the process, Meloy tells the crowd that “Manchester was like Narnia to me as a kid” in reference to the city’s rich musical heritage; it won’t be long before Portland, Oregon is held in similarly high regard if it can keep churning out live bands as accomplished as The Decemberists.

Joe Goggins

Album: Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Music.

Elbow
Build a Rocket Boys!
Fiction/Polydor
2 & 1/2 stars

Build a Rocket Boys! is Elbow’s fifth album and follow up from their 2008 Mercury award-winning The Seldom Seen Kid. The Brit-Rockers still pedal their guitar-orientated brand of melancholy, but this time have swapped cynicism for nostalgia.

The album is constructed as artfully as Elbow’s previous work.  ‘The Birds’ sounds like mere textural build up but develops into an epic, beat driven, string swathed opener.  ‘Neat Little Rows’ matches the swagger of ‘Grounds for Divorce’, showing that the band can still do catchy. Although the semi-orchestral moments (and there are a lot of them) can get tiring, they never feel gratuitous and it’s easy to appreciate the musical craftsmanship.

Similarly, there is no question of how much care Guy Garvey puts into his lyrics (this is the man who visits Peter Gabriel to “share thoughts” when experiencing writer’s block) and it wouldn’t be unfounded to compare his combination of swirling backing vocals and yearning lines with Sigur Ros’ atmospheric mastery. But tracks like ‘With Love’ give the game away. Garvey croons nakedly over a jerky piano and the listener is bombarded with his lyrics in panoramic view.

This is the anomaly of Elbow. They refuse to sit with Coldplay’s radio-friendly brand of sad guitar rock but can’t quite do it as intelligently as Radiohead. Build a rocket boys! may contain the answer tucked away at track number five: ‘Jesus is a Rochdale Girl’ is a song about first love, sung in Garvey’s damaged Mancunian accent over an unmistakably eighties Casio keyboard and understated acoustic guitar. For a moment, Elbow sound like the band that their overblown compositions and over thought lyrics desperately want them to be.

Phoebe Hurst